Star Wars Jedi: Lost Episodes

Part II

Knack’s eyes open with a start. He’s still holding both his and the found datapads (the latter he hasn’t even turned on). The plate of food he left for Ploss is empty and she is sitting on the bed meditating while manipulating one of the geometric figures in the air in front of her.
“Ok, this ship isn’t going anywhere, so I guess I should shop it around to the others and get a little coin to live on while I … while WE… travel to Glee Anselm.”
Knack plans to see if his uncle is still willing to pay the amount he offered yesterday. If not, he’ll take whatever he can.
“We are going to have to book passage or something on whatever garbage truck happens to be docked, so it may be the long way round for us, kid… wait. What exactly are you doing? what is that thing, anyhow?”
Ploss doesn’t answer but continues her focus. Knack turns his attention to his data pad and checks the station logs to see what ships are currently docked or due in the next day or so. Nothing of note or very far ranging is due or present. He drums his fingers against the other datapad… the one he recovered from Ti-Odo’s things.
Obviously, knack turns the device on. “might as well see what’s on here while I wait…”
Ti-Odo’s Datapad is largely empty (hooray free datapad). It does feature a prominent Jedi symbol on the backside. It contains six encrypted files. Knack grumbles a bit because his expertise is in engineering, not really software.As he starts in he finds the first file bound tight and looks to Ploss for insight. She does not respond at all… after some time, Knack opens just the last 3 files:
The first reads “Project Harvester” and is sparse with information. There is a small star chart centered on the planet Arkanis, and a short write-up on rumors of a Dathomirian Zabrak, a Lethan Twi’lek, a Mirialan fallen padawan, and some confusing notes on many siblings and a Pau’an leader. Importantly there is a symbol that Knack doesn’t immediately recognize. It looks like the Galactic Republic symbol, but is different…

The second file is very empty. It contains JCrux0000103-#009099 and a name, “Professor Huang”. (I checked, you lack the knowledge to tell what that number is).

Finally, the third file is largely corrupted (ruined in part due to your hacking) but contains the clear string “The Antarian Rangers?” (I rolled knowledge (jedi lore) for you like a boss and you can go to This Wookiepedia Page and read everything. The sections “Dark Times” and “Rebrith” don’t count right now.)

Part I

Knack uses the tractor-beam-crane to position the scrap ship at his station but it isn’t until dinner time that the shop clears out and leaves Knack alone, with a snack, with his new ship… a wrecked Jedi Cruiser. Knack rubs his hands together with glee, double checks his tools and heads towards the entry of the ship with the intention of opening it and seeing what he’s got…

He easily hooks up power and gets the external maintenance hatch open. After a bit of crawling, Knackton is in the main body of the ship.
Inside there is a great deal of damage in the immediate compartment. The original astromech is easily found, but that is only because its thousands of pieces are everywhere. A casual walk through reveals some damage to the bridge area, closed doors leading to the captain’s quarters on the left and what looks like doors “fused” shut on the right that normally leads to a mess area/extra storage.

Knack fires up his flashlight and moves to the captain’s quarters. He hooks up the datapad and intuitively, almost instinctually, enters instructions to divert power in the batteries to open the door. He notices while doing this that all power was previously routed to temperature and pressure control functions in the mess area. The captain’s cabin that his flashlight reveals to him is just so, but obviously shaken by the attack on the ship. A simple chest at the foot of the bed reveals a set of simple clothing cut from cloth and synther. A large-ish synther bag contains nearly a dozen objects of various geometric shapes slightly larger than Knack’s fists. He also spots a belt with several compartments. Within he finds a Medpac, Datapad, Holorecorder, and a tubular object that resembles a hydrospanner

Knack picks up the bag, and briefly examines each object. He has no idea what they are, and he is fairly certain they aren’t worth the metal they’re composed of, probably just toys or something. He slings the bag over a shoulder and examines the belt, particularly the “hydrospanner”; he flicks at the switch but nothing happens. Shaking it doesn’t reveal any sound… maybe he can take a closer look later. He’s fairly certain he knows what the items on the belt are worth, well besides the useless hydrospanner… which may be a broken lightsaber.

Deliberately putting the “spanner” in with with his other tools, Knack investigates the fused doors to the mess. It appears that weld-cord was rather unexpertly employed to fuse the door. Knack also notices that the door is discernibly cold to the touch. As he begins cutting at the weld water starts to spray from the cut at a rather high rate.

“Well, that’s … unexpected. Ship’s a little small to have an aquarium…” Knack thinks out loud. He will continue cutting trying to keep himself and his tools out of the wet. Unfortunately, the seam pops and a jet of water slams Knack in the chest and thrusts him into the wall behind him.

Knack regains consciousness uncertain of how long he’s been out. He’s soaked, water is everywhere, and apparently a large section of the weld popped out and narrowly missed him (now it is embedded in the wall just inches from his face). The door may now be pried open. In the odd lighting his flashlight offers, Knack can make out two forms: one looks like an adult, the other a child, both are aliens of different races, and both appear dead.

He approaches the two forms warily trying to identify them. The adult is a man with an elongated head wearing clothes that are similar to what Knack found in the other room (Dead Cerean). The child has pale yellow-green skin and there are about 8 tentacles coming from the top of its head. Knack can tell the child is not dead, but obviously unconscious. Yet he cannot help but stare at the child in amazement for a few moments before coming to his senses. He recalls that the belt found in the other room contained a medkit. Knack retrieves the medkit and attempts to aid the child with it. “This would be a lot easier if you were a droid…” he says to the unconcious child as he applies the contents of the medpack…

With a jolt the child awakens just as soon as the stim shot stylus pierces her skin. She looks around rather wildly speaking in wet-sounding tones and then spots the Cerean, screams and rushes past you to him. Her speech shifts to a different language as she pleads with his shirt. (Ploss Losa)

Knack nearly falls on his ass when the child springs to life. He approaches the crying child, and then thinks better of it, stopping short of arm’s length. Squatting down to eye level with his palms out in front of him he gently speaks, “Whoah, easy kid! take it slow. He’s gone. I checked, he’s gone. I’m sorry I didn’t find you in time to help him…. you nearly were, too. Do you understand me? Are you ok? What’s your name?”

The child stops abruptly and mutters in Basic “There is no emotion, there is peace.” and then with a deep breath turns to face Knack. “I am Ploss Losa, thank you for your help. I need food.”

“Sure thing, kid… let’s take a look around. This ship has to have a galley, or rations on board or something. Worst case, we can get something in the station." Ploss suddenly pauses “Other people?… Wait, what station?”

Knack flippantly responds “Balamak Gas and Scrap. What happened to you? I picked this ship up for scrap, nobody mentioned anything about it still being occupied!” Knack holds out a hand to help the kid up.

Ploss cautiously takes his hand. “Balamak…. BALAMAK!? How did we get so off…” her stomach growls and her tentacles flip. Knack now notices just how emaciated and weak the little girl is as she falls unconscious into his arms while reaching to the corner where a training saber lies. There is no food in the mess, what may have been left was ruined by the water.

Knack scoops up the girl, and grabs the saber from the floor. He plays with it for a moment before clipping it to ploss’ belt. He takes her back to the cabin he was in previously, and sets her in the captain’s bunk. He covers her with the blanket ans says “ok ploss, stay put while i get you some food. I’ll be right back.” he then leaves the ship, changing the codes and locking it behind him.

Then at the station kitchen facilities he gets some chow to bring back, changes, and takes a little pain killer before returning to the ship. Ploss is fast asleep. Knack sets the food next to the bed and goes into the other room to investigate the datapad, holorecorder and any ship’s logs that might exist. Also, taking a cursory look around, he attempts to locate the droid brain in the scattered debris, in case there’s any salvaging it. Finding no brain (the vacuum of space owns it now).

On the holorecorder is the Cerean. The message was recorded aboard the ship while it was not in good condition (i.e., fires in the background, the occasional shaking explosion, smoke, and blaster burn marks on his clothing). A date marker puts this recording at 3 weeks old.

I am Jedi Master and Instructor Ti-Odo. If you’re watching this, then I’ve passed on into the Force and my only hope is that the youngling is safe. Her name is Ploss Losa and we escaped execution on Coruscant. STATIC based on false crimes and carried out by the Clone Troopers and at least one of our own. His identity is hidden from me, clouded by the dark side. I was going to take her to Glee Anselm to meet a colleague but we experienced hyperdrive failure following an astrogating miscalculation. I request that you please complete this task. What I ask of you will place you in the way of great danger, but the very future of the Jedi Order may depend on it. GOUT OF FLAME We’ve fallen out of Hyperspace and I’m going to divert all power into maintaining a livable environment for Ploss and I. If it gets bad enough I will be utilize the forbidden art of Morichro on her and STATIC hold to make an aquatic environment for her to survive in. Please seek out TRANSMISSIONCUTSOUT

“Wow. An honest to goodness Jedi. And they need my help… this is ….just nuts…” Knack takes a couple deep breaths, and plugs into the ship. Attempting to get a full diagnostic of the damage reveals that the ship’s on board diagnostic computers are fried. Individual systems must be checked. Over the next couple of hours Knack deduces that literally all systems are in some form of disrepair and that critical systems, like the hyperdrive and life support are roughly 5% undamaged (not operational at 5%). Resigned, Knack slumps near the bed where Ploss is asleep and opens up some star charts on his data ad while absently flicking his thumb on the datapad retrieved from the captain’s quarters.*
*Working his way through the transmission, which he keeps playing on loop, he computes the route from Corsucant to Glee Anselm (an easy and obvious hyperdrive route). Then Knack tasks the nav computer with computing a route to Balamark from every point along the Corsucant-Glee Anselm path. The only likely, and it narrowly misses several systems, route would mean that they diverged at Corsucant and thus something damaged the ship within that system just before it jumped (screwing up its plan and trajectory). Knack closes his eyes for a minute to clear his head and falls asleep.

Knacton is slaving away another day at Balamak Gas And Scrap breaking some nonsense apart for the salvageable parts. He hears the bay “alert” sound and looks up from his tools. A familiar salvage ship is parking in the bay and it is holding a second ship that seems much worse for the wear. The Rendili Vehicle Corporation Defender-class Light Corvette is set gingerly down (itself large enough to command most of the bay) leaving the salvage ship enough room to back out and attach at a near-by dock point.

Knack sets down what he’s working on, grabs his tool bag, and gives the ship a walk around. “bit bigger than the usual junk that comes in here…” he says to no one in particular. Casually, Knacton appraises the condition of the salvage; a fix it vs. total it out for parts kind of thing. The forward cabin clearly took turbo lazer fire and was compromised. All thrusters are completely disabled destroyed. The “center mass” of the ship looks relatively unscathed considering the carnage. The lazer marks show clear darkening on the paint job. This, plus damage from blasts covers the obvious place where identifying markings for the ship would be.

Exiting from the air lock is a familiar Ithorian, Erdorode Atemem, whom befriended Knacton on a herdship some years back. He and Uncle Loren shake hands warmly and then, as they walk the gang planks to where the salvage was “gingerly” placed, the Ithorian continuously gestures with big arm motions toward the ship while your Loren scratches his chin.

Upon seeing the Ithorian, Knacton stops his survey and greet him warmly…

The Ithorian speaks through a translator device, “Hello Knacton, it has been a while. I’ve brought your uncle a nice piece of scrap, but he won’t listen to me.” Erodrode then explains that the price he’s asking (which is very, very high for a ship with such damage) includes a premium for exclusive “dibs” ((this is code for “I haven’t gone through it at all so I have no idea what is in it and I’m letting you at it.”)). Erodrode even begins to describe where he got the ship when Loren clears his throat, “Remember number 3,” making reference to Rule #3: “If I don’t know then I don’t have to lie.” “And besides,” Loren continues, "I’m not going to pay <life> for a ship that may have been cleared out by the vacuum of space. 2,000 credits or nothing from me.

Knacton drums out “worth it?” in binary on the side of his tool bag. Looking for any sort of identifying marks on the ship Knacton notices that one of the turbo laser marks has only partly obscured Jedi symbol. This is a Jedi’s ship! Erodrode doesn’t even know it, but he has delivered a potentially extremely valuable ship (if the right sort of stuff is on the inside) that your uncle wouldn’t even appreciate and just sell off.

Exasperated, Knacton turns to Erodrode “How much for me?” To which Erodrode replies ~20,000 credits. I’ve got mouths to feed.~ Knacton has all of 20290 credits to his name.

“Boy, where do you even get that kind of money? Even if you had it, you’d be wasting it.” He walks off shaking his head, “Erodrode, if he doesn’t have the credits then haul that shit out of here by the next cycle. Knacton, keep it in your area and that is a ‘your-time’ project”

“Fine, done deal!” Knack shouts after his uncle. He turns back towards Ero and says in a lower tone, “seriously though? 20k? I hope you feel bad about fleecing a kid, Ero… now let’s go get you paid.” He then proceeds to the several of his hiding spots to retrieve his savings… Erodrode collects his credits and with a “smile” goes to buy some gas for his ship.

Knack uses the tractor-beam-crane to position the scrap ship at his station but it isn’t until dinner time that the shop clears out and leaves Knack alone, with a snack, with his new ship… a wrecked Jedi Cruiser. Knack rubs his hands together with glee, double checks his tools and heads towards the entry of the ship with the intention of opening it and seeing what he’s got…